This is crap!!! Romney inflated taxes as governor of Mass. to 13% and taxed the states population to fund the states needs. (Big Dig, unneccasary construction) Now all of a sudden he picks a running mate with a proposed tax plan to cover the "all angles approach." This is just another rabbit in a hat trick by another American politician. It's a joke, an embarrassing joke.

You list these dismal statistics, but don't say one word as to how President Obama is responsible for them--or how, if Senator McCain had been elected instead, his policies would have produced better results, given the mess the GOP handed President Obama along with the keys to the White House.

This is what Republicans do constantly--list dire statistics with the unstated assumption that somehow the President did it--as if we'd elected him King, with the power to write and pass legislation.

An American president has a lot of latitude in foreign affairs, but domestically he isn't a lot more than chief administrator of Congress's legislation.

As for the "freeloading lifestyle" look to our corporate/investor welfare queens swilling at the public trough for that, using sweetheart contracts and loopholes and insider deals to soak the taxpayer for vastly more than America's poor do.

The US has run annual deficits in excess of $1 trillion for each of Obama's almost 4 years in office. Who do you think is responsible for that?http://prof77.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/over-100-million-americans-now-get-some-form-of-socialized-government-assistance-food-stamps-etc/

There is now an unprecedented number of people on workers comp disability payments. Either the workforce has become a lot more dangerous or the current climate of freeloading is encouraging a lot more people to get some of Obama's largess - except it is being paid from debt to the Chinese - you know, our best buddy who has nothing but our best interests at heart? Who do you think is responsible for that.

Are you aware that Obama enjoyed the first two years with majorities in both houses of congress, with the dem position in the Senate being described as an 'effective super majority'.

So what did Obama do with these free and unfettered reins of power?

He forced Obamacare through without a single vote from the GOP in favor and against the will of a majority of Americans, which is still largely the case.

And he provided vast amounts of subsidies to outfits like Solyndra and other members of the green crowd. None of which can survive without copious amounts of taxpayer assistance. And even then many of them still go belly up.

The "shovel ready" projects he identified and provided vast amounts of subsidies to (most of them dem supporters), as it turned out, were not shovel ready at all. The funds were frittered away on "administration" at these companies.

Yeah, you could say Obama really blew his first two years of unfettered power.

Americans gave the house back to the GOP in 2010 because of Obama's poor stewardship and spendthrift ways. They had clearly had enough. They had already noticed that the social experiment in selecting Obama had backfired.

The House has since been engaged in fending off more of Obama's lunatic inclinations. And who would blame them.

If you will check the previous post which begins with the word "Wrong," and proceeds to give the actual facts about the Senate during the president's first two years, perhaps you will cease your "blame-shifting."

As a longtime executive in the field of Healthcare technology, I have seen how the fear and uncertainty created by the redistributionist policies of Obama, Reid and Pelosi have stifled investment and incentivized businesses to horde cash while waiting for stability. I have also seen how the ever-increasing regulatory burden on healthcare has stifled the passion for excellence that once epitomized American healthcare. Today, instead of passion, I see complacency. Doctors, nurses, technologists, administrators, et. al. now just want to get their work done and go home - focusing more on avoiding bureaucratic complications than on actually helping the patient. It is very sad to witness, this Europeanization of American Healthcare.

As a businessman who travels extensively throughout the United States I have also witnessed myriad other businesses effected in a similar manner. To quote that last Marxist-oriented American president, Jimmy Carter, we are in "malaise".

Finally, as an economist and a person with a better than average mastery of mathematics, I can recognize the obvious - that the massive debt being accumulated by our Federal Government is unsustainable and that the impact will be felt primarily by our children and grandchildren.

Paul Ryan is a breath of fresh air. He is smart enough to understand and articulate the problem, he recognizes the practical need of phasing in reforms over time, he knows that any symbolic gesture to "tax the rich" will not make the slightest dent in the deficit, and he articulates the reality that growing our economy is the only way out of the problem.

I read these silly comments trying to marginalize Ryan as being against women, the elderly or what have you with sadness. It is sad to see that some marxist-Americans can be so jealous of their fellow man that they would willingly destroy the greatest economy the world has ever known just to pursue utopian equality. It is pathetic.

What do you think about Medicare Part D? The law that Tauzer struck with Big Pharma to rip off Medicare by $billions as it made it illegal for the US government to get the discounted rate of 300 million Americans. Ryan signed off on that one. I guess big Pharma really feels thats as burden.

Forcing Health Insurance companies to refund anything back to their clients that is over 80% of the premium is a big burden too I see. Dam that Obama, forcing Health Insurance companies to cut margins do they can't pay their executives million $ salaries.

Ryan voted for both Wars, Bush tax cuts, Medicare Part D and you have the audacity to call him a breath of fresh air after he ran the deficit up?

Apologies for picking out one small point from a long post - but what exactly do you think is the bad thing about the "Europeanization of US health care"?

Is it the lower average costs, higher average coverage rates or better average outcomes you dislike about European healthcare?

I've been living in the US for 6 years and the one thing I would change first if I was 'King of the World' is introduce European style healthcare.

If you think the costs of the deficit, etc. are bad and that we should fix them for the benefit of our children then moving to a European model - with lower overall costs growing at a lower rate - would be a very good thing ... right? What would be wrong with that? Surely that would be part of the solution. Your thinking - based as it has to be on looking at healthcare as a profit center - is all mixed up my friend.
There's a quote that seems to apply here - you'll never get someone to understand something if their paycheck depends on them not understanding it.

Evidently the "Europeanization of healthcare" would not be in your personal self-interest.

Pray tell, in what other nation on Earth--Europe or elsewhere--are either the citizens or the government champing at the bit to adopt America's healthcare system--either the present one or the "I've got mine Jack" "reform" you'd like to see?

Anyone?

How about that well-known Marxist country Germany, with its well-known Marxist leader Angela Merkel? Oh wait. Their healthcare system costs less with more people covered with better health outcomes than ours, and the country is large and comparably industrialized and educated.

Please show me a link to any German of any sort in any position who wants to replace their system with ours.

Good that you told us, if true, the area of technology you work on, because if it's one thing that is suffocating health care in the U.S, in terms of costs, it's precisely the overuse of technology. It tops the chart in every category. Instead of you giving people some real information, and/or advice, of how the excessive use of technology (which you probably advocate with zeal if you profit from it) is draining our resources, you launch on a non-sense political ranting about socialism and marxism that is all too familiar by now coming from politicians trying to marshall tens of millions of ignorant voters to vote against their own interest.

"Apologies for picking out one small point from a long post - but what exactly do you think is the bad thing about the "Europeanization of US health care"?"

Well, if Canada's HC system could be described as "European, I have experienced "European" HC.

I lived in Toronto for 16 years and hardly ever used the HC system. However, when I was diagnosed as needing a knee replacement, I was told to get in a line of 2 years for this so-called non-life threatening malady. I spent the next 18 months staggering around using a cane. At which point I was told, another 1 year to go, if I was lucky.

Fortunately, about that time I received a job offer to move to Denver that was too good to turn down. So I took it.

Within 3 weeks of getting here I had the knee replacement sugery and threw my cane away after less than two weeks since the surgery.

In Canada's rationed HC, you don't get to choose who your primary care physician is, particularly if you live in a rural area. You get a short list to choose from, sometimes a Hobson's choice. Whether you get on with your intern or not, is just too bad for you. If you raise a stink about some aspect of your care, expect your care to decline accordingly.That care is like a revolving door - after 10 minutes the doctor starts to look antsy.

Specialists are almost as rare as hen's teeth. You have to be at death's door to even think about getting to see one. The hospitals in Canada are dingy and look like a third rate motel. they are not equipped anywhere near cutting edge. CAT scans are hard to get approved. Too expensive for the average Joe, according to the government

If you haven't experienced government run HC, you are in for a monumental shock.

In America, 80% of Americans have health insurance from either of their employer's plan, private insurance, Medicare for those over 65, or Medicaid for the poor.

Of the remaining, 20%, one half are illegals who deserve no insurance at all at taxpayer's expense. If they need emergency care, they should get it and as soon as possible they should be transported to the airport and given free air travel - one way.

For the remaining half of the 20%, or 10% of Americans, who cannot afford to pay for private coverage and are not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, they should be given sliding scale assistance according to their income.

We should not be duped into throwing the baby out with the bathwater as Obamacare does.

I do not trust a committee of unelected government officials, who will run Obamacare, to decide how a potentially life threatening medical condition that I might have, be handled.

If by "8th grade namecalling" you are referring to my use of the term "marxist", perhaps you could entertain us all by suggesting a more pricise label that we should affix to the political/economic ploicy of taking from some according to their ability and giving to others according to their need. Pray, give us a chuckle.

Regarding Germany, having spent years working with Siemens Healthcare (Erlangen, Germany). I have seen both the best and the worst of German healthcare. Suffice it to say that Siemens has many brilliant physicists and engineers who have made wonderful contributions to medical technology. But virtually none of these advances would have occured but for the American healthcare system. You see, much of the Siemens R&D was performed in the United States and, more importantly, the funding for such development primarily came from the profits generated out of selling these products to the United States.

The German domestic healthcare system's contribution played at best a negligible role. And today, with the American system bogged down in malaise, Siemens is suffering. We are all suffering.

You write, "...looking at healthcare as a profit center - is all mixed up my friend."

I work in the field of medical imaging - MRI and CT scanners primarily. When I began my career in this field the brutal practice of "exploratory surgery" was commonplace. The term "inoperable brain tumor" frequently broke the hearts and destroyed the lives of parents grieving for their suffering children. Crutches were seen everywhere and the term "cripple" was routine.

What force of man do you think changed the face of modern healthcare and thus improved the human condition so profoundly? Do you think that the politburos of the Soviet Union brought forth this change? Ha!

Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging is a relatively new technology first developed at the University of Nottingham, England. Peter Mansfield, a physicist and professor at the university, then developed a mathematical technique that would allow scans to take seconds rather than hours and produce clearer images than Lauterbur had. -- from wikepedia article. Looks like good old goverment funded university in good old socialist UK created it. Sorry. Sometimes people just want to learn, discover and invent. Doesn't always have to be to take people's money - sometimes it's just to help them. Maybe you can't understand that motivation. But I'll agree that profit is a very, very powerful motive - but clearly you were dead wrong THIS time.

You may wish to expand your knowledge beyond that provided by Wikipedia. Having known Lauterbur personally I know that both he and Mansfield would still be performing NMR experiements on rats in a basement somewhere were it not for the efforts of myriad entrepreneurs.

You may wish to begin with Raymond Damadian, MD - the first person to have scanned a human being and the person who came up with original idea of using NMR phenomenon to detect cancer in vivo. I know him even better (worked for him for a couple years) - though he is a bit of a nut case. Lauterbur's contribution was more mundane - he simply translated CT reconstruction techniques to NMR data. Mansfield was even more obscure - his was a theoretical development of "echo-planar" imaging - one of many MR experiments performed today but one that could not come to market for more than twenty years after Mansfields equations when computer technology bercame powerful enough to process the data.

From there, I suggest you read the history of the industry and of companies past and present including Fonar, Diasonics, Technicare, Picker International, Elscint, Philips, Resonex, Hitachi, Shimadzu, Toshiba, Siemens and General Electric.

Not one of these companies "took" anyone's money. What an insulting phrase! They entered into free and honest exchanges with clinicians and healthcare providers who took these technical tools and made them useful by developing clinical applications that improved the lives of patients - even patients like you.

As aa result, thirty years ago a patient with a knee injury was given a crutch and labeled a cripple. Last week, we saw many such people earling Olympic medals!

Sir I recommended your post for it's pure gall. If you click on most recommended you will see that the most popular posts in this article are by far the ones calling out Ryan's budget plan and past federal largesse.
To attempt to marginilize them even as you accuse them of marginalizinr Ryan is nothing short of brilliance and I cry to realize that so many americans whom are used to not thinking will stop there and believe you.
Finally you have the gall as a CEO to tell me that the stbility is the president's problem when the economy can essentially be described as broken. It was broken when he recieved it and it will not magically fix itself upon anyone's election or re-election. Alas your "instability" is here to stay for awhile and I don't need advanced maths to realize that.
Finally what a shame it must be for corporations to feel the slightest bit of pain while the rest of us worry about bankruptcy, foreclosure, sky high medical bills, no way to fund college for our kids or ourselves, or even putting gas in our cars.

I think it is time to cancel my subscription. There is absolutely nothing in the Ryan agenda that is good for America....Not his plan for Medicare, not his plan to cut Medicaid, certainly not his further cutting of tax revenues.... You seem to forget that this is the USA, we don't have a National Health Service, we have very expensive for-profit health care that doesn't even provide superior results for those who are forced to pay for it. Had Ryan proposed something that would REALLY reduce the cost of health care, that would have been good for America.

Americans already pay lower taxes than the rest of the industrial world, please explain why we should pay even less. While civilized nations care for their citizens, we devour ours in an ever increasing dog-eat-dog climate that favors the rich and advantaged and looks to turn the majority of the country into little more than serfs. Have you looked at our minimum wage sir? Compare it to the one recently legislated in Australia and then go bang your head against the wall to knock some sense into it.

LOL. I have been subscribing to the Economist for years, and sometimes become infuriated...I get over it as I always remember that for the most part it is an excellent publication. I simply find Paul Ryan so distasteful I momentarily lost all perspective.
Have a great weekend.

LOL. I have been subscribing to the Economist for years, and sometimes become infuriated...I get over it as I always remember that for the most part it is an excellent publication. I simply find Paul Ryan so distasteful I momentarily lost all perspective.
Have a great weekend.

You do realize that the Romney ticket just released an "info"graphic where he says his plan is to "Bring Medicare spending under control."

On the same graphic, under the negatives about Obama, he chastises him for cutting Medicare spending.

All I see from Ryan, and by proxy Romney now, is a magic budget. Raise defense spending even more, cut everything else that keeps society together, and let those with money insulate themselves away from the peons.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of Obama at this point either. Just today NAFCU, the National Association of Federal Credit Unions, released a scathing letter to the CFPB about the effect on small institutions of 2996 pages of new regulations within a 6 week period.

The problem is Romney/Ryan just swings the pendulum to far the other way.

Paul Ryan voted for both Bush wars paid for with borrowed money and an unfunded Medicare Part D. He also voted to raise the debt ceiling 7 times under GW Bush. His current proposals will balloon the debt and not begin to address it until 2030 at the earliest. If you believe he is the least bit concerned about the national debt I have this lovely bridge I'd like to sell to you. It connects Manhattan to Brooklyn.

If he really wanted to do something about ballooning health care costs he would not have given such a free ride to the pharmaceutical industry when he supported Medicare Part D. The
VA negotiates better prices for drugs, but Medicare is banned from doing so. He'd also end Medicare Advantage which costs the government 15% more than regular Medicare, but you see it is quite expensive and only the most well-off seniors can afford it...his supporters, one assumes.

I find politicians who have epiphanies only when the other party is in power to be despicable. No one likes deficits but there are ways to solve the problem without crucifying the poor, the disabled, the elderly and their middle and working class children who will have to figure out how to pay for medical care for themselves and their parents.

And what are you going to suck when they don't cut the deficit but continue to grow it at a faster pace, like every Republican administration since Reagan? I am rather hoping for a GOP takeover in Nov. The following 4 years should drive it into the wilderness for another 40 years.

I should point out that you missed the point of my remark about Biden...but I would expect as much.

"And what are you going to suck when they don't cut the deficit but continue to grow it at a faster pace"

The deficit will be reduced by Romney indicating that they will shrink the size of government from the current 24% of the GDP to the long term average of less than 20% of the GDP, a saving of $750 billion a year on its own. Or half the current annual deficit of $1.5 trillion.

Romney has indicated that the private sector will be given control over its destiny by providing certainty of taxation and the removal of the myriad overlapping regulations that currently strangle it. Corporations which have cash reserves parked abroad in the trillions will bring those reserves back to be invested in America when they have certainty as to the tax that applies. Romney has said the funds should come back with zero tax as foreign taxes have already been paid on these earnings.

The energy sector has enormous potential to go a long way to making America energy self sufficient. Romney has said that America's massive oil and gas fracking reserves will be developed on a much larger scale, as has been the case in N Dakota, which now has the second highest oil production in the union. No significant threats to the environment from these operations have been found.

But reserves on federal lands have been largely verboten under Obama, as have much of our reserves off shore and in Alaska. These will be allowed to be developed under the Romney/Ryan administration and, on their own, have the potential to create millions, literally millions, of jobs. These new job recipients will pay taxes,and so will the corporations employing them. These fracking reserves can be developed without compromising the environment by state regulations that check operations - JUST ONCE.

Reduction of the current unprecedented 107 million of Americans currently on some form of government assistance (welfare, food stamps, extended unemployment, Medicaid). They now include millions of freeloaders under Obama's promiscuous "have a few thousand on us" attitude. Romney has pledged to reduce the incentives for free money.

Romney has pledged to trim the unprecedented number of Americans now on workers disability. Either the workplace has become a lot more dangerous or Americans have discovered that they like freeloading instead of old fashioned work.

That more than covers the current annual deficit so these savings should begin to pay back to our friends, the Chinese, the $1.2 trillion that we currently owe them.

If you think that the Chinese will not use their leverage over America to their best advantage, think again.

There you see how it will be done.

Obama has had his shot and failed miserably. He should be given free transport off the WH lawn by helicopter on January 20, 2013. With Michelle and Mrs Robinson, the lady who has enjoyed free world travel at the expense of the American taxpayer, following close behind.

I wonder who will be there to give their derrieres a good swift kick. I shall volunteer.

Is there a political blender whereby i can pick and choose traits from politicians i like and leave out those i don't?

Tax reform and Medicare/SS reform from Ryan. Applause to you sir, anyone who believes M/SS isn't headed for disaster doesn't understand basic algebra, and Tax reform has long need a Grand-Plan to kick the gears and get things going.

I don't like the small government needs, and cutting government for the sake of government i surely oppose, as the small 'discretionary' spending does the most good: education, infrastructure, energy, et cetera. And if the military is left alone in its present state with its present budget, the discretionary spending will get cut that much deeper.

This has to be about the most sorry ass article I have come across in the Economist.

Ryan has no specifics to back up any of his ideas which are simply a thinly veiled plan to raid the middle class while increasing wealth for the rich and corporations.

Anyone can come up with an idea. Ryan's ideas are half baked libertarian crap. He is duplicitous as his actions are the opposite of his words. A big spender signing all Bush's deficit run up bills. A creepy social conservative sponsoring bills for women vaginal probes and life begins at conception.

This is not Hollywood Economist. Having an attractive smile, a good work out ethic and a good line of bullshit is meaningless to me.

Cut taxes + (magic we won't tell you) = balanced budget!
I don't know why I even bothered to read this article. The Economist is so obviously desperate to support anyone other than Obama. How can you say Ryan has produced a plausible plan to close the deficit and then two paragraphs later note that there's a $500 billion asterisk on the plan?
You could almost believe that a Democratic president did actually balance the budget, and that a Republican blew it wide open, but the Economist would still say the Republicans are fiscally responsible.
Oh, wait.

It is always so easy to have hind site and to criticize those who have had to weather and fix the financial crisis created by previous administrations. Just get on with it!
Find a tax those who are/were responsible for this mess. The ability is there.

Oh look! An article about a GOP candidate's real and important politics. Instead of demonization of whose son Sarah Palin's ds child really is, or charismatics hope-and-change candidate with messiahnic powers...

To be fair I don't think The Economist never seriously reported on the issues you brought up. In fact they have derided Obama's grand statements just after the election (the rising of the oceans stopping and so forth), and rightly so, quite a few times.

Yes, I have a plan too. Ignore Paul Ryan and let the Bush tax cuts expire and continue investing in the United States until we return to growth. What is the difference between my plan and Paul Ryan's? Mine has a proven track record.

You could be right...so I may have gotten all my MSM slobbering love affair with Obama mixed up.

But one thing I remember was that in 2008 around the time of the elections, I decided to unsubscribe to the Economist after 10 years receiving my printed copy; and the reason was because the almost sickening bias toward Obama, and the worst part, was its endorsement.

I dont have a problem with a newsource showing bias, in fact is not news that Newspapers like the NYT, Washpo, etc do public endorsements. But the reason why I subscribed and used to love TE was because being a non-US magazine, its articles and perspective were more balances and objective. With Bush, they were fair when needed to be or very critical when needed to be. I loved that... but with Obama, they went overboard even if he had a very strong and by far better competition in Hil Clinton. At times I was even confused and didnt know if I was reading TE or just a more sophisticated version of Newsweek!

I can't say I really remember The Economist going overboard about Obama prior to the 2008 election. Yes they were showing a lot of enthusiasm but I think it was warranted: Bush was on his way out, and while he wasn't as awful as some would have you believe, I think everybody was looking forward to America regaining it's moral footing when it came to foreign affairs, an issue that is usually understated in most publications.
Thinking about it, considering the world wide hysteria about Obama, maybe the Economist was looking to cash in on the wave? I don't think it is likely and I like I said I really don't recall ever thinking "this is a bit much" when reading about Obama back in 2008.

FDR and Ronald Reagan did the the same. Under Reagan the dollar was so weak, he had to back it with wheat. Nowadays, even with our deficit, the dollar is strong.

This is directly from CNN:
"A stronger dollar isn't always bad news for corporate America. But as the growth of earnings decelerates in the second quarter, CEOs from McDonald's to Colgate-Palmolive say that an appreciating dollar has been bad for business lately."http://money.cnn.com/data/currencies/

Can The Economist please explain how the Ryan plan is a plausible plan for closing the deficit? A large amount of data from both the Tax Policy Center and the Congressional Budget Office points to the contrary.
Mr. Ryan says that the tax cuts won’t reduce revenue, because they’ll be offset with unspecified “base-broadening”.He also assumes large cuts in discretionary spending relative to current policy but he does not specify where they would fall.
In my opinion The Economist is falling into a classic case of false balance which was described so well in the Democracy in America blog recently. In order to be perceived as politically independent The Economist is trying present the Ryan plan as something which it is not.

"...the fear must remain that the Republicans will deliver the spoonful of sugar but not the medicine, as they did under George W. Bush. If that happened, the deficit would balloon, just as it did under Mr Bush. And, with the top rate of income tax falling from 35% to 25%, the rich would benefit while spending cuts hit the poor disproportionately."
The Economist does not think this plan is plausible. It does think it might create debate and start to move the policy in a more serious direction. I hear your point Domitian, but the truth is, the author set out to evaluate Paul Ryan and did a good job. The quote above is quite damning, is it not? Whatever your political leanings, and I'd broadly say that I am centre-left, the one thing I always congratulate the Economist for is a decent evaluation of a policy or an idea. I may not agree with their conclusions, but their groundwork is usually spot on.
Again, I think due to the partisanship and emotion connected to this election, people are seeing things that they wish to see. In this case, The Economist endorsing Paul Ryan. In 2008, they endorsed Obama. Let the debate play out and policies be refined, and we'll see who they ultimately stump for.
But even if they endorse Romney, don't worry. The newspaper wont influence the outcome of the election and will not tirade against Obama.

I am not afraid that this newspaper will support Mr. Romney. It had endorsed Mr. Obama the last time round and I strongly believe it will continue to do so. What I am trying to say is that some of the remarks the authors make seem to be lending a semblance of credibility to Mr. Ryan's plans which it does not deserve. Yes the article also provides the riders which you point out, but that is true for any article in this newspaper. All of them carry the requisite number of riders. Hence the comments on plausibility carry a lot of importance.

I am not afraid that The Economist will support Mr. Romney. It had endorsed Mr. Obama the last time round and I strongly believe it will continue to do so. I am merely saying that the authors of the article, in the interests of false balance, are giving Mr. Ryan's plan a semblance of credibility it does not deserve. The comments that you point out are important riders but such riders are present in every article of this newspaper, such is its policy. As a result its initial comments carry a lot of weight.

To be fair, I don't really see that they are arguing that Ryan's plan is credible. I think what they are rejoicing at is the fact that someone is on the ticket that is actually talking about dealing with the debt crisis. That should translate into a decent debate during the election - theoretically.
The other thing I would say is that the 'riders' as you note, are what the authors are trained in. Top universities in the UK train their humanities students to critique arguments. Most articles way up arguments, critique them, and then reach judgement. They are very different from some other excellent parts of the British press such as The Guardian or The Telegraph that are much more forceful and opinionated.
Most of the authors of the Economist are from that academic environment - of putting forward and critiquing both sides. It's in their blood and that's how they'll continue. As a result, they'll never please anyone (Republican or Democrat), and that's a good thing.

That is precisely why I am saying that their conclusions are important.
"There is much to like about him", "His clarity is a virtue", etc. are all conclusions they have drawn.
If anything he is a master at obfuscation.
And how dare you mention The Guardian and The Economist in the same breath? The Guardian's columnists pay scant attention to facts in their single-minded efforts to establish left-wing intellectual supremacy. The Guardian's comments page is a dose of anti-establishment vitriol.

The Guardian is one of Britain's finest institutions. The phone hacking revelations and the Jonathan Aitken affair are just two excellent examples of their contribution to British public life.

The Guardian does pay attention to facts - again their journalists are excellent - and their column page an excellent place to read people such as George Monibot (one of Britain's most respected columnists). Their editor Alan Rusbridger is universally respected across the British political establishment. I know people have a tendency to divide things up into good/bad, black/white, but The Guardian's has a special place in British history for those on the left or right.

So I'd be careful to view the Guardian in such a way. The comments section on here isn't representative of the quality of the Economist (guilty as charged).

The final thing I'd say about your view on this article is that the statements "clarity is a virtue" and "there is much to like about him" are hardly ringing endorsements. If I interviewed someone with that reference, I'd have my doubts.

You make good points but it still seems clear that the Economist has shot from the hip a few days after Ryan's selection. I will be astonished, if they continue to conduct a "decent evaluation" of Ryan's actual accomplishments and the real-world applicability of his "ideas", if they do not come to a different conclusion than the one expressed in this article.

I agree, those statements aren't ringing endorsements, but all I am saying is that once you take into account the fact that The Economist never gives ringing endorsements, those comments carry a lot of weight. Even such a cautious endorsement, in my opinion, is undue because Mr. Ryan's plan in its current form is totally implausible and out of touch with reality aside from the fact that it does nothing towards achieving its stated goals.
With regards to The Guardian, I agree Monbiot and company do make an interesting read but they (especially the online contributors of late) tend to get wild-eyed with their conclusions.

I agree, those statements aren't ringing endorsements, but all I am saying is that once you take into account the fact that The Economist never gives ringing endorsements, those comments carry a lot of weight. Even such a cautious endorsement, in my opinion, is undue because Mr. Ryan's plan in its current form is totally implausible and out of touch with reality aside from the fact that it does nothing towards achieving its stated goals.
With regards to The Guardian, I agree Monbiot and company do make an interesting read but they (especially the online contributors of late) tend to get wild-eyed with their conclusions.

Mitt Romney will become our President-elect in November anyway; and Barack Obama and his "Marie Antoinette" will retreat either to Chicago or Hawaii next January to lick their political wounds and write their memoirs, and work full time on his presidential library.

It cannot happen fast enough for the good of the United States and the American people!

Meanwhile your children and grandchildren will have decimated infrastructure with which to try to start a business, sub-par and incredibly expensive education and reduced opportunity to go along with the same debt load. Sounds like a good deal to me.

I wonder how "The man with the plan" figured Uncle Sam would be able to pay for each of the two wars he voted for?
If in office, out of which slush fund will the RR team find the next 1,000,000,000,000USD or two to achieve regime change?
The health of America vs. the death of another dictator?
Plan B must B sothething else!

After voting present 2 times on the bill intended to give legalhood to survivors of abortion, the third time Obama (an Illinois senate at the time) voted against it, being the only one (rep or dem) to do so.

That is where his reputation (admitedly, smashed and silenced by the MSM) comes as a supporter of infanticide, because he was "so worried" that it may affect or risk the abortion rights (Roe v Wade), that accepted the possibility of letting a newborn die if that's what was needed to make sure abortion was "succesful".

Even if Romney loses, Paul Ryan isn't going anywhere. If the hard fiscal conservatives could compromise on some of their spending cut demands, Ryan's budget would be completely feasible.
The consensus of intelligent people seems to be get rid of exemptions and lower taxes on businesses, which hurt small business far more than big business. This is something that, whomever is elected, should be accomplished right away.

After having read article after article from the Economist over the past decade about the problems of the ever-widening wealth gap, I couldn't believe my eyes when this article has endorsed a VP extremist who effectively is Robin Hood in reverse: stealing what little is left for the poor to feed the rich. Perhaps this author has too at last been bought off by the Koch brothers??

I'll double down on John's reply (with all due respect to japanned).
I feel that many readers are so wrapped up in the election and are so emotionally invested in a candidate (in this case Obama I assume) that they are seeing conspiracies everywhere.
The author wrote an evaluation of Paul Ryan (strengths and weaknesses of his appointment) and a catchy headline was added. This does not amount to an endorsement and doesn't mean that the Koch brothers are looking over the author's shoulder as they type.
Deep down, everyone invests emotionally in an election, and we all hope that our guy/girl wins. But we don't have to turn off our rational faculties - and we have to remind ourselves of this when both campaigns are trying to score quick points. Otherwise we are dragged into the mud.

I really wonder how many more people these days just don't give a monkey's which one of the pretenders wins. Either way, so very little changes, except for the worse in most cases (though not absolutely all). My visceral response to this article comes from the shallowness of the analysis, which is at the heart of the problem, not from a perception that the author did or did not endorse a candidate.

Now, after careful reconsideration, the Ryan plan may be more feasible than I initially thought. After he guts the lower and middle classes perhaps he intends we use the new military-on-steroids he proposes to take from the rest of the world the resources we'll need to fill the gaping revenue hole his plan would produce. Look out Middle East, China, Europe and South America, here we come.

I don't know if you are British or not, but I think sometimes people who are not have a hard time understanding the tone of The Economist.

The article above is not an endorsement (although The Economist may well endorse Romney for the presidency) of Ryan's plan. And the title is nothing complimentary. The Economist simply likes to be jovial and playful in its headlines.

In 2008, The Economist endorsed Obama, but it also said nice things about McCain and critical things about Barack throughout its election coverage. Although it might seem that the publication is being partisan, it usually just stays true to the underlying principles of the newspaper - liberalism (economic and social).

Why does everyone care about detail these days? Why cant a politician just say - I will remove the deficit by doing x and y - if this happens then you vote him back in, if not, you don't?

Mr Obama never provided any 'details' about how he was going to close Guantanamo. Although, I suppose since this hasn't happened at all it's a good case for being skeptical about promises without details.

My conclusion would be, don't re-elect Obama as he broke too many promises, give Romney a chance to fulfill his promises.

P.s. Can you also remove the filibuster thing where the votes of like 8% of Americans can stop a bill becoming law? Or at least make filibustering hard again. Bring on the phone books!

And if Romney's stealth plan doesn't work maybe we should go back and try Herman Cain's '999' plan, because why not?

Guantanamo was hardly the main factor that led most to consider Obama, while the economy was literally cratering and we were watching the panicky meeting between Bush, his advisers and then candidates Obama and McCain on tv.

I care about details. I want to know what happens to the needy when benefits are slashed in a weak economy. I want to know which loopholes will be closed to make up for the massive revenue cuts Ryan would enact, while promising to increase military spending and cut the deficit. So far it sounds like magic to me.

The details themselves are not as important as the fact that if someone can provide them it means they have honestly tried to tackle the issue.
Ryan's lack of specifics when it comes to some important issues in his proposed budget should be worrying: it means, at least to me and a good deal of people, that he drew up a wishlist and isn't sure if it's feasible.

"Guantanamo was hardly the main factor that led most to consider Obama"

Yeah, and I have noticed a complete hush from the mainstream media (NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CBS, and most of the time CNN) about this broken promise by Obama to close Guantanamo within the first year of his presidency.

Now if a Republican president had said that there would be hell to pay in the mainstream media.

You mention his proposed tax cuts for the wealthy and determination to disproportionately wring the poor as if they are minor faults in an otherwise good plan. This is the very crux of the problem some of us have with him. Until these are addressed it is a wicked plan that would further widen the chasm between the haves and have-nots. His ironically titled 'Path to Prosperity' is precisely the thing that renders him wholly unacceptable.

And let's not forget his social vision that is every bit as regressive and informed by religion as that of Michelle Bachmann.

For Ryan to become someone worth serious consideration he would have to transform himself into something entirely unryan like.

From what I gather Ryan hasn't said he wants to cut taxs so much as The Economist is thinking that his plan might amount to tax cuts because of the lack of details available.
This is something Ryan has backed into really: I'm not so certain that a lot of Americans think that cutting taxes alone will help much. He might not want to do that, but if he's serious about his plan and his future as someone who wants to run for office, he needs to be prepared for these kinds of questions and that his lack of concrete information, in a highly toxic political climate, can harm him. He wants to be VP? Fine, then you have to back it up.

He's said it alright. Slashing or eliminating capital gains and corporate taxes is at the heart of his trickle down silliness. Many of us suspect the tax holes he wants to close are those exemptions that would hurt the middle and lower classes the most, like mortgage tax exemptions. Simply put the money being poured into Romney's coffers is being contributed by those who expect to benefit from a Romney victory the most.

" - Promotes saving by eliminating taxes on interest, capital gains, and dividends; also eliminates the death tax.

- Replaces the corporate income tax – currently the second highest in the industrialized world – with a border-adjustable business consumption tax of 8.5 percent. This new rate is roughly half that of the rest of the industrialized world."